Saturday, August 13, 2011

An intelligent, successful businessman. A non lawyer. A non Ivy League graduate of state college. A tri-athlete and marathoner. Translation=Hard Work. A former Governor who has used the biggest tool ever invented to combat statism. The veto. A libertarian.

An excellent choice for President. Not widely known.

Pay attention to what a man has actually done. Discount anything a man says he will do. Had we vetted Obama that way...he would not be in the White House wasting precious time.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Today I traveled to Vegas by way of convertible from Boise. I left the top down way too long and absolutely irradiated my face. Vegas it seems, is at the crossroads for my friends and family who live in Denver and my friends and family that live in Santa Barbara.

I used to travel to Vegas several times a year as a young man. I loved to play poker. I was here the day they tried to blow up Frank Rosenthal at the Stardust. (casino, the movie) I was staying just down the street at the Sahara. In 1987 I moved to Las Vegas. I had some success playing poker in Northern Nevada and I wanted to play in Vegas- where there are games everywhere- at all hours of the day or night. There is no shortage of action here.

I can't even begin to tell you what that was like. Quite honestly, I cannot describe myself as anything but naive and delusional. Ultimately, like virtually all gamblers- I went broke in 1988. I also landed in the hospital. The only good thing that happened to me in Vegas was that I met my future wife and of course, we were married here. We left family here when we moved to Idaho- and that prompted our frequent visits. Somewhere in the mid 1990's, The movie, "Leaving Las Vegas" was released.

I loved that movie because it was real. I have seen people do precisely what Cage's character came here to do. Whether drinking yourself to death was a conscious or unconscious decision doesn't seem to matter- the results are often the same. I knew three or four people who did that very thing. I met a guy, an old homicide cop from Chicago named Milt. An alcoholic named Bill Parks that I shared a hospital room with for two weeks and a very famous poker player named Bill Smith. I played with Bill a lot at the Gold Coast. Always smoking and drinking beer. Read this wikipedia piece which is very accurate. You'll laugh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Smith_%28poker_player%29 I'd throw in Stu Ungar but I didn't really know Stu although I played cards with him. They did a movie about Stu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Roller:_The_Stu_Ungar_Story Stuey was a math whiz. Stu also loved cocaine. If you have any character flaws when you arrive here- this city is like a giant magnifying glass. It will help you find those flaws and magnify them. This city facilitates and exploits addiction like no other- and it can certainly help you kill yourself. Kind of like Dr. Kevorkian.

About ten years ago, I was playing in a poker game at the Mirage. This tall, lanky kid, sits next to me and soon we strike up a conversation. The kid is about the same age that I was when I moved to Las Vegas. He had asked me if I lived here. After I gave him my brief bio, he gets all giddy and tells me that he is moving to Las Vegas from Michigan just like I had done. He is excited. He tells me that he has saved up 10k and that he is going to play poker for a living. I sat there just kind of stunned. I wasn't sure what to say. Gullible and naive kids like I was and perhaps he was, have to live out our dreams. Would he have listened to me if I had tried to dissuade him? No of course not. Every gambler thinks that he is a little smarter, a little better, than the next guy. I was like that. I think this kid was too. I did the only thing that made sense. I wished him the very best.

On the way down today, I heard about the stock market slaughter and listened as gold rallied once again. Tonight I am staying at a nice hotel with no gaming. Quiet and serene. I played cards for about 30 minutes after dinner and made 50 bucks. That's a big score for me nowadays. I have about a pound of Noxzema on my burning man face and it's getting late. Tomorrow I will pick up some friends. On Friday, I'll be leaving Las Vegas once again. It gets easier all the time.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Ok, the Fed says they are going to leave rates low for two years. Big deal. Who didn't know that?

In fact, if you want to know what the Fed is going to do- there is already a blueprint. It is called Japan. Japan has experienced 22 years of dead time. The call it the lost decade(s). Their debt to GDP is the highest in the world at 200%. Unlike us though, the people of Japan own most of the debt. We sold ours to China and the consortium of private and international bankers called the Fed.

So why the rally? Are we getting new jobs? Are we making new things? Has anything changed? This was a typical dead cat bounce on no news. A short covering rally. The trend is down and it will stay down. I guess the only good news is that " We will not monetize the debt" Bernanke says there is no QE3. Yet.

Bet me he is full of shit. President Screw Off will be begging for QE3. Before the primaries. Bank on it.

I find the markets fascinating. The tug of war is on. On the heels of black Monday, the banker class pushed the panic button.

Trust me when I say this. Bernanke is going to be "directed" to put a positive spin on our economic nightmare. Today, I fully expect him to hint at QE3 or any number of things to stop the flow of blood. This will not be what he actually believes. This will be him, selling us out, as per usual.

The confession that we are fucked? QE3. The ruling class have a choice right now. Let the damage they caused finally unwind- enter the penalty phase and get it over with (1) or try to gerrymander another bullshit rescue attempt and cause even further and more significant damage(2).

The cumulative effect of all of this money printing? More wealth distribution to the ruling class, more inflation and theft from the middle class, and when it is over, we are going to have the same shitty results. Keep repeating the same mistake, keep getting the same results. Ad infinitum.

QE3 is the confession. If QE3 begins, that is the signal to throw in the towel. At that point you should take everything you have and invest in gold, real estate outside our borders, Icelandic treasuries. The reality is- QE3 is like saying we only have one solution. We are going to print, print, and print our way to hyper-inflation. If you don't think a hyperinflation event can happen here, if you think Weimar, Germany or Zimbabwe is impossible or a wives' tale- watch closely. These bastards, and that desperate man in the White House, are just the right recipe.

Monday, August 8, 2011

This is about restorative justice. This is what happens when greedy and thieving men with power try to avoid the consequences of their actions. This is about hope and promise.

From 2002 to 2008, I witnessed some of the craziest shit I had ever seen. Kids buying houses with virtually no credit and the house doubling in value in two years. The young couples invariably did one of two things. They bought a larger or a second house (greed) or they took a loan out with that mythical equity- for toys. Motorcycles, campers, boats, that sort of thing.

People were flipping houses. It was insane. The world was so saturated with credit that any idiot on the planet could get a home loan and did. I didn't fall for that easy credit. Not because I am smarter than anyone else- I have just always disliked banks. I had a 15 yr. first, no second. Calling banks a necessary evil would be accurate.

I would like to say one other thing. This is an absolute core belief of mine. In life when you make a serious mistake- you must pay a serious penalty. That's the rules. It goes like this. If you get drunk and decide to drive- you pay the price for getting caught or being in a crash. That might include incapacitation or death. When you cheat on your wife- the penalty is emotional and economic loss. Sometimes severe. When you over extend yourself on credit, you suffer economic loss. You lose your shit. That is what is supposed to happen. What no person in their right mind could imagine- is that the people making those economic mistakes would...(A) Escape the consequences (B) Socialize their mistakes and penalties by stealing (more) innocent peoples' money.

That is precisely what the fuck happened in the fall of '08. And the bankers and the politicians thought they were clever. They were gonna slap each other on the back, get away with the greatest grand theft of all time, and carve out some solution so that they could avoid the consequences and do it all over again. The ruling class violated my core belief by not taking responsibility and suffering the penalty. So it was- that these assholes lit a brushfire in my mind that has not stopped burning for three years. And make no mistake about my colorblind anger, Obama is one of those assholes.

I want justice. I will not be happy until every crooked banker, every crooked President, every crooked politician pays their penalty. And if that means we have to bankrupt this country, and everyone loses their asses, then so be it. Like most, I don't have anything to fear. I don't have anything left to lose. It's been three or four years in the making.

Please don't mistake my attitude or why I write. I don't want any more damage to come to the people who didn't make mistakes. But I have to accept the unfortunate reality that this system is designed to screw over the blameless. Plenty of innocent people have lost jobs, homes, health care. I take no glee in that. I didn't design the system- I simply recognize it. I would love nothing more than to isolate every party responsible and make them pay their penalty. But that is impossible now. They have socialized the loss and spread it among all of us.

I don't write because I need some ego validation- some opportunity to say "I told you so." I write because I want to start a brush fire in your mind. I want you to be just a little bit angry like I am. I want you to recognize that fear is the weapon that the ruling class uses to keep us in line and steal from us. It was fear, "the world is going to collapse" nonsense that Hank Paulson used to rob us of a trillion dollars. It is fear that the ruling class continues to use against us and steal our wealth by convincing us that if we do not turn over the national coffers, raise the debt ceiling, we shall all wind up in economic hell. Many of us are experiencing economic hell now. I see no sense in not inviting the banker class to come join us.

Don't mistake the core beliefs of a large place like ZeroHedge or a small place like Frankenstein Government. We are not depressed or pessimistic. We are simply tired of the crooks and their co-conspirators getting away with murder. Green shoots of justice are beginning to take hold in this country. Bank of America is on the verge of collapse. Our enabling President, the one that gave the architects of the collapse a "get out of jail free card" is starting to feel the pain. Standard and Poor's is beginning to tell the truth about our ridiculous debt. The dollar is dropping, gold is rising, downgrades are coming, states are broke, and the shit storm is just beginning. It's about time. Halle fucking lujah!

I don't have one ounce of sympathy for any person taking out a loan they couldn't afford or a bank that issued them. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for the bankers who bought those crappy mortgages or the rating agencies that called them "AAA" investments and ripped off the investing world. I do not have one ounce of sympathy for Wall St., Obama, or that dysfunctional Congress. If I had my way, I'd bounce all of them into the street on their collective asses or into a jail cell. Instead and realistically, I am watching the "green shoots" of justice develop. The yin and now the yang. In life, when you screw up- you gotta pay the penalty. All the ruling class has managed to do was avoid suffering the consequences for a little while. It's harvest time. Time to reap what we have sown. That's why I am happy. For those seeking justice, this is all we are going to get. Perhaps once this is finally over, we can plant a new crop. I hope so. That I think, is the nature of things.

You gotta admit that is some funny shit. Obama is going to need Helen Prejean to escape the election gallows. Obama single handedly snatched a 300 point DJIA losing day and turned it into a 600 point losing day. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory once again. Here then is "Debt Man Walking."

... and try to tell everyone that our downgraded debt is really good. Try to spread the blame around...everyone will get a taste except the people who deserve it the most. Obama and the kleptocrats. One hundred percent predictable. Obama never lets me down.

Markets down over 300 points and headed in the appropriate direction. The bankers Obama sold out to cannot help for the time being...

Is there ANYONE out there who doesn't think QE3 is about to happen??? Obama, the putz that he is, will try anything to get re-elected. I just wanna know when they are re-loading the toner cartridge.

As much as I can't stand this dude, I still try to listen to the drivel that comes out of his mouth. I've now had the CNN live window open for 40 minutes too long. Obama might have four putted on the last hole.

Downgrading Fannie and Freddie now. No shit. We've already thrown over 100 billion at those losers and Fannie asked for another 6 billion last week.

Every time I think of this black hole, I think of that little prick Barney Frank encouraging these two outfits to buy every worthless loan document from any one who could find a pen. A whole corrupt mortgage industry dumped their shittiest loans on Fannie and Freddie.

Unbelievably, our government or this administration has not said anything about hot particles or radioactive fallout from Japan. They are too busy whining about the S&P downgrade. Weird, is anyone keeping an eye on this? I guess not. This is serious shit. Please read this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_particle

Here is a geiger counter reading from Oklahoma just after a rain shower yesterday. You do not need to watch the whole clip to get the idea. This is Oklahoma. Not exactly ocean front property.

This question was posed to me by a 90 year old woman in Moonbat Valley some years ago. Her name was Alma A. I never forgot her or her question and when she passed away last year- I was sorry that I didn't answer her question.

The reason good people don't run for public office is because good people are good. They don't crave power and influence, they don't crave money or wealth, and they certainly don't enjoy shoving their opinions down someone else's throat like they are a matter of fact. They don't like confrontation. They are in control of their egos not the other way around. And ultimately, public office tends to bring out those nasty things.

Once upon a time in Moonbat Valley, we were able to convince a good man to run for Mayor and he won. He spent the next 4 years absolutely marking his calendar. He hated being Mayor. The press badgered him non stop (of course the press were statists and he was not) and they never missed a chance to characterize him in some bad light. But the part I think that bothered him the most about being Mayor was that the people who worked for our city disliked him so badly. He refused to give them raises or increase their budgets. They in turn viewed him with contempt. They became obstructionists. Any time he needed something done- they made his life miserable. Threw up roadblocks. That was the game. It had nothing to do with what was right or respect. It had everything to do with human ego. Ego that doesn't get what it wants and thus launches retaliatory attacks.

That was the reality. I watched this all happen only a few years after Alma had first posed the question. I am sorry that I never went back and gave her the answer. Good people are intelligent Alma. That is why they are good. Why would anyone want to run for office and subject themselves to hate filled newspaper commentary, mutinous government workers, and all of the assorted nastiness that goes along with that? From greedy developers to whiny ass council members. The reality of public office, from the depths to the top, is that all people cannot get what they want. The worst of us have no problem making the best of us miserable.

In turn, we got a new Mayor. She was the polar opposite of good. She was the type of person that runs for public office. Unconscious, nasty, ridiculous ideas, dishonest, big ego. Vengeful. The brand of politician we have all come to know so well.

That's why good people don't ever run for public office. They can't, it's just not their nature. That is something that I don't think our fore fathers could have ever envisioned or planned for. That public office in this country would become some ego gratifying means of scoring power and wealth. That wasn't the way it was intended but that certainly has been the way it has evolved.

I have a treat for you. Do you remember when I used to award the FG award for the shittiest writing of the week? Well I found a winner tonight. Not only is this piece full of ridiculous and illogical conclusions- it is the whiniest piece of writing I have read all year.

I am not the least bit surprised that Robert Reich wrote this. How do people like Reich get jobs? And more importantly- how in the hell do they keep them? This dude stays busy. I forgot that he was once the Secretary of Labor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich

I just had to throw this in from his wiki bio. In 2004, he published Reason, a book on how liberals can forcefully argue for their position in a country increasingly dominated by what he calls "radcons", or radical conservatives. Dominated by radcons?? WTF is he talking about?? We are a country dominated by drooling statists and moonbats...we've seen how well that's been working out for us.

This is what happens when you take the credit card away from the moonbats. They howl like banshees and blame everyone but themselves. Now I clipped this piece from the moonbat mother ship, Huffington Post. It pays to know what our unconscious enemy is up to. Now here's the link...click here while I run into the bathroom and get a towel to clean the vomit off my keyboard. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-sp-has-no-business-do_b_920348.html

Reich whines about the timing of the S&P downgrade- I guess apparently because he was not consulted. Just when is a good time for a downgrade? Had the downgrade occurred next year during the height of the presidential campaign- Reich would have been even more upset. The reality? The moonbats thought a downgrade would never happen.

Reich complains that we are paying our bills, so why the downgrade? Oh really, Robert? Adding a trillion and a half worth of debt, year after year after year, is paying the bills? Geezus, did any of you moonbats ever take a math class or better yet, pass one?

Tea Party Republicans holding the nation hostage? This is where Reich and his fellow kleptocrats completely leave the rails. They spend, spend, spend and then when we try to take away their credit card they whine like little girls. But blaming responsible Tea Party lawmakers for doing what they were elected to do? That used to be called responsive government Mr. Reich. They were trying to do what we asked them to do. Ain't that rich? The statists who shit canned the best bill, the President who played obstructionist and you blame the Tea Party? Wow. Really, Robert? Like it matters now anyway.

Let me end with this last piece of pitiful commentary from Reich.

"Pardon me for asking, but who gave Standard&Poor’s the authority to tell America how much debt it has to shed, and how? If we pay our bills, we’re a good credit risk. If we don’t, or aren’t likely to, we’re a bad credit risk. When, how, and by how much we bring down the long term debt — or, more accurately, the ratio of debt to GDP — is none of S&P’s business."

Pardon me for mentioning this Robert, but I never gave any of those consumer credit reporting agencies the authority to disclose how I pay my bills and to whom. Or what my debt to income ratio is. But I'll be damned if they don't do it anyway. They give that info to other creditors. And unlike the United States government Robert, sometimes the bank doesn't extend credit to me. Sometimes these banker bastards even have the audacity to tell me how to clean up my credit report. Like that's any of their business! If only I had a Federal Reserve Bank of my own...my problems would be over.

Reich summed up the whole S&P argument in the third line of that paragraph. "If we don’t (pay our bills) or aren’t likely to, we’re a bad credit risk." We ARE a bad credit risk Robert. That's the truth, no matter how adamantly you disagree. Apparently you are still of the opinion that we can pay that 17 trillion. Yet we haven't and we can't. If we could, we wouldn't be going in the hole another 1.6 trillion in this fiscal year or raising the debt limit. Grab some reality Reich. You are entitled to your opinions but not your own set of facts. Debt now exceeds 100% of that shrinking and manipulated GDP figure. That my friend, mathematically speaking- with a few thousand years worth of history backing it up- means doom. No country has ever rebounded at these debt levels.

How do you become this stupid? It's hard to figure. But imagine the millions of people like Reich that actually believe this shit and then you begin to understand why we are in so much trouble. The problem with guys like Reich is that they see this whole mess through partisan goggles. They still think this is some sort of opportunity to play politics. Or that it's some temporary glitch. Any day now- those 30 million jobs we lost are going to be brought back home. Wasting time blaming others is not a solution. The solution might have been that cut, cap, and balance bill that the kleptocrats shit canned in the Senate. Reich forgot to mention that. In fact, had it passed we might never of had this downgrade. That damn "radcon" controlled Senate.

So take your down grade like a man, Robert. You have nobody to blame but yourself and your party and know this....You ain't seen nothing yet.